An apparatus, the apparatus comprising at least one processor, and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured, with the at least one processor, to cause the apparatus to perform at least the following: based on the determined age of a particular message in a displayed message thread, provide for a change in the intelligibility of at least part of the particular message with respect to one or more of: at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread; and at least some of the other part of the particular message.
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19. A method comprising:
based on the determined age of a particular message in a displayed message thread comprising transmitted messages, providing for a change in intelligibility of at least a part of the particular message with respect to one or more of:
at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread; or
at least some of the other part of the particular message; and
in response to a user interaction comprising at least one of a selection of at least one transmitted message in the message thread or a scrolling of at least one transmitted message in the message thread, causing the intelligibility of the at least one transmitted message to increase or decrease according to the user interaction.
20. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer program code stored thereon, the computer readable medium and computer program code being configured to, when run on at least one processor perform at least the following:
determine an age of a particular message in a displayed message thread comprising transmitted messages;
based on the determined age of the particular message in the displayed message thread, provide for a change in intelligibility of at least part of the particular message with respect to one or more of:
at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread; or
at least some of the other part of the particular message; and
in response to a user interaction comprising at least one of a selection of at least one transmitted message in the message thread or a scrolling of at least one transmitted message in the message thread, cause the intelligibility of the at least one transmitted message to increase or decrease according to the user interaction.
1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor; and
at least one memory including computer program code,
the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following:
determine an age of a particular received message in a displayed message thread comprising transmitted messages;
based on the determined age of the particular message in the displayed message thread, provide for a change in intelligibility of at least part of the particular message with respect to one or more of:
at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread; or
at least some of the other part of the particular message; and
in response to a user interaction comprising at least one of a selection of at least one transmitted message in the message thread or a scrolling of at least one transmitted message in the message thread, cause the intelligibility of the at least one transmitted message to increase or decrease according to the user interaction.
2. The apparatus according to
3. The apparatus according to
4. The apparatus according to
5. The apparatus according to
at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread;
the intelligibility of the particular message in the displayed message thread immediately preceding the change in readability; and
the readability of an immediately preceding message in the message thread.
6. The apparatus according to
7. The apparatus according to
8. The apparatus according to
at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread; and
at least some of the other part of the particular message.
9. The apparatus according
at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread;
the intelligibility of the particular message in the displayed message thread immediately preceding the change in readability; and
the readability of an immediately preceding message in the message thread.
10. The apparatus according to
reduction of the separation between the particular message and an earlier message in the displayed message thread such that the older messages have reduced intelligibility compared with newer messages; and
increasing of the separation between the particular message and a later message in the displayed message thread such that the newer messages have increased intelligibility compared with older messages.
11. The apparatus according to
12. The apparatus according to
logical age determined according to the position of the message in the displayed message thread with respect to at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread;
actual time age determined according to the time of receipt or transmission of the particular message;
actual date age determined according to the time of receipt or transmission of the particular message; and
actual time-date age determined according to the receipt or transmission time-date of the particular message.
13. The apparatus according to
14. The apparatus according to
15. The apparatus according to
16. The apparatus according to
17. The apparatus according to
18. The apparatus according to
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This application was originally filed as Patent Cooperation Treaty Application No. PCT/CN2013/077452 filed Jun. 19, 2013.
The present disclosure relates to user interfaces, associated methods, computer programs and apparatus. Certain disclosed examples may relate to portable electronic devices, for example so-called hand-portable electronic devices which may be hand-held in use (although they may be placed in a cradle in use). Such hand-portable electronic devices include so-called Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile telephones, smartphones and other smart devices, and tablet PCs.
The portable electronic devices/apparatus according to one or more disclosed examples may provide one or more audio/text/video communication functions (e.g. tele-communication, video-communication, and/or text transmission (Short Message Service (SMS)/Multimedia Message Service (MMS)/e-mailing) functions), interactive/non-interactive viewing functions (e.g. web-browsing, navigation, TV/program viewing functions), music recording/playing functions (e.g. MP3 or other format and/or (FM/AM) radio broadcast recording/playing), downloading/sending of data functions, image capture function (e.g. using a (e.g. in-built) digital camera), and gaming functions.
An electronic device may allow a user to read transmitted messages. Messages may be displayed using a particular message layout, font size, font style, colour scheme, and other characteristics.
The listing or discussion of a prior-published document or any background in this specification should not necessarily be taken as an acknowledgement that the document or background is part of the state of the art or is common general knowledge. One or more examples of the present disclosure may or may not address one or more of the background issues.
In a first example there is provided an apparatus comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform at least the following:
For example, a user may view a private text message conversation (e.g., a message thread/exchange requiring transmission of messages from one device to another) with a contact. Older messages in the conversation may be presented in a less intelligible way (e.g., the intelligibility changes to make them less intelligible) as they are likely to be of less interest to the user than more recent messages. Another person looking at the user's displayed messages (for example, reading over the user's shoulder) may not be able to read the less intelligible older messages, and thus the user's private conversation is less likely to be seen by the other person. Given that the particular message is still provided for display, it is not removed from the display screen or archived in this instance.
The apparatus may be configured such that the intelligibility of one or more of at least a part of an image of the particular message or part of the text content of the particular message is changed with respect to one or more of at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread and at least some of the other part of the particular message.
The apparatus may be configured to change the intelligibility of the at least part of the particular message with respect to the message immediately preceding the particular message.
The apparatus may be configured to change the intelligibility of the particular message based on the determined age such that at least some of the displayed messages in the thread are displayed so that progressively older messages have progressively reduced intelligibility. The intelligibility of one or more messages in the message thread may not be changed.
The apparatus may be configured to change the intelligibility of the particular message based on the determined age such that, as the particular message gets older, the at least part of the particular message will have progressively reduced intelligibility with respect to one or more of:
The apparatus may be configured to provide for the change in the intelligibility by reducing the intelligibility of the particular message if the determined age meets a predetermined old-age criterion, the predetermined old-age criterion providing for reduced intelligibility of older messages with respect to newer messages in the displayed message thread. Thus older messages may be harder to read than more recent ones.
The apparatus may be configured to provide for the change in the intelligibility by increasing the intelligibility of the particular message if the determined age meets a predetermined new-age criterion, the predetermined new-age criterion providing for increased intelligibility of newer messages with respect to older messages in the displayed message thread. Thus more recent messages may be easier to read than older ones.
The apparatus may be configured to provide for the change in the intelligibility of the particular message by one or more of: blurring, changing font type, changing font size, changing character ordering, changing contrast, partially covering characters, and changing spacing between characters in the particular message with respect to one or more of:
The apparatus may be configured to, when the particular message comprises text-based content, provide for the change in the intelligibility of the particular text-based message by changing character ordering between one or more of:
The apparatus may be configured to provide for the change in the intelligibility of the particular message by changing the separation between the particular message and one or more of an earlier and a later message displayed in the message thread with respect to one or more of:
Doing so may allow more messages to be displayed on a screen, because reducing the spacing between messages gives a higher message density. Varying the message density over the display may maintain/comparatively increase the intelligibility of more recent messages displayed at a lower density compared with older messages which may be displayed with smaller spaces between them (i.e., displayed at a higher message density). The overall flow of the message thread may be presented over a greater number of messages than could be displayed if no change in intelligibility had been made by varying the message separation/density. This may be advantageous if the message thread includes many messages back and forth and it is useful for a reader to see the message flow to understand the conversation.
The apparatus may be configured to perform one or more of:
A reduction of the separation between the particular message and an earlier message in the message thread may be performed such that the newer messages have increased visibility compared with older messages. An increase of the separation between the particular message and a later message in the message thread may be performed such that the older messages have reduced intelligibility compared with newer messages.
The apparatus may be configured to subsequently change the intelligibility of the at least part of the particular message upon initiation user interaction with the displayed particular message, the intelligibility subsequently changed with respect to the intelligibility of the at least part of the particular message immediately preceding the initiation user interaction. A user may interact with a particular message to initiate a subsequent increase and/or decrease in its changed intelligibility (subsequent to an earlier automatic change based on message age), as a manual alteration of the changed intelligibility.
Of course, the apparatus may be configured to subsequently change the intelligibility without first requiring initiation user interaction such that the change happens automatically after a particular age of the particular received text message is reached.
The particular message may be removed from display in the displayed message thread after a predetermined expiry time. For example, the message may be archived when determined to be a particular age (such as one year, one week, one day, or one hour from transmission/receipt).
The apparatus may be configured to determine the age of the particular message. In other examples, the apparatus itself may not determine the age of the particular message but may receive an indication of the message age from elsewhere.
The apparatus may be configured to compare the determined age with the predetermined old-age criterion.
The apparatus may be configured to compare the determined age with the predetermined new-age criterion.
In other examples, the apparatus itself may not compare the determined age of a message with the predetermined old-age/new-age criterion, but may receive the required age comparison indications from elsewhere.
The determined age of the particular message may be one or more of:
The apparatus may be configured to change the intelligibility of the particular message for display by one or more of a display of the apparatus or a display external to the apparatus.
The message thread may comprise messages including one or more of text and image content sent by one or more parties to a particular recipient electronic address.
The recipient electronic address may be associated with one or more of: a public posting website address (such as an address for a forum or comments page), a predefined group posting website address (such as an address for a social media group page), a telephone number, an electronic messaging account for receiving and/or sending messages, an email address, and a social media address (such as a microblog address or personal media space webpage address).
The message thread may be between two or more parties using respective electronic transmission devices.
The message thread may comprise messages submitted to one or more of: an SMS account, an MMS account, an email account, a social media account, an RSS feed account, and an electronic messaging account.
The apparatus may be one or more of: a portable electronic device, a mobile phone, a smartphone, a tablet computer, a surface computer, a laptop computer, a personal digital assistant, a graphics tablet, a pen-based computer, a digital camera, a watch, a non-portable electronic device, a desktop computer, a monitor/display, a household appliance, a server, or a module for one or more of the same.
According to a further example there is provided a computer readable medium comprising computer program code stored thereon, the computer readable medium and computer program code being configured to, when run on at least one processor perform at least the following: based on the determined age of a particular message in a displayed message thread, provide for a change in the intelligibility of at least part of the particular message with respect to one or more of:
A computer program may be stored on a storage media (e.g. on a CD, a DVD, a memory stick or other non-transitory medium). A computer program may be configured to run on a device or apparatus as an application. An application may be run by a device or apparatus via an operating system. A computer program may form part of a computer program product. Corresponding computer programs for implementing one or more of the methods disclosed are also within the present disclosure and encompassed by one or more of the described examples.
According to a further example, there is provided a method, the method comprising: based on the determined age of a particular message in a displayed message thread, providing for a change in the intelligibility of at least a part of the particular message with respect to one or more of:
According to a further example there is provided an apparatus comprising: means for providing for a change in the intelligibility of at least a part of the particular message based on the determined age of a particular in a displayed message thread with respect to one or more of:
The present disclosure includes one or more corresponding aspects, examples or features in isolation or in various combinations whether or not specifically stated (including claimed) in that combination or in isolation. Corresponding means and corresponding function units (e.g., message age determiner, message display, message intelligibility changer) for performing one or more of the discussed functions are also within the present disclosure.
The above summary is intended to be merely exemplary and non-limiting.
A description is now given, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Many electronic devices allow a user to view messages. Examples include chat messages; e-mails; text messages in a text messaging conversation; received RSS news feed messages; MMS messages containing text, images and/or movies, and social media messages. Many users take a portable electronic device with them wherever they go, and may be able read and access messages. This includes use of the portable device in public places, such as on buses, on trains, in shops and in cafés. Messages may be presented for viewing by a user in an organised logical way, such as in a chronologically ordered conversation between the user and a friend. While this helps the user easily see what has been said in a messaging exchange, it may also be easy for a stranger in a public place to look at the user's device and also readily see what has been said, thereby invading the user's privacy.
It may be that a user does not want previously sent/received messages from being easily read by others. For example, a user may be composing a text message for transmission to a friend. The user may have sent and/or received private messages in the earlier messaging conversation which is displayed along with the message currently being composed. The user may not wish these earlier messages to be easily intelligible by another person, such as a nearby passenger on a train. Thus it may be desirable to hide the contents of a message thread from third parties who may be looking over the user's shoulder, to protect the user's privacy.
It may be that as a messaging thread/conversation grows with the addition of new messages, older messages will be removed from display from a screen to make space for the new messages to be displayed. However, the user may still have a display screen full of messages which he may not wish another person to see. In some examples, only the most recent message may be displayed. This prevents other people from looking at older messages in the conversation, but also means the user cannot see the older messages. This may be undesirable as no information is presented to the user about the flow of the conversation, such as the times and dates of previous messages, what was said in the previous messages, and the structure of the conversation.
It may be that a user is less interested in older received messages and more interested in more recently received messages. For example, if a user is reviewing received social media text and image based messages, the user may be more interested in more recently received messages as these are more likely to relate to current events. The user may be less interested in older messages as these may relate to past events. The user may, however, still wish to be able to easily read the older messages alongside the more recent messages, for example if the more recent messages refer back to older messages.
Examples discussed herein may be considered to, based on the determined age of a particular message in a displayed message thread, provide for a change in the intelligibility of at least a part of the particular message with respect to one or more of: at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread; and at least some of the other part of the particular message.
Advantageously, in certain examples, a user may be able to view a series of messages on a display with increased privacy from other passers-by looking at the display due to, for example, the intelligibility of older messages changing to become less easily intelligible than more recent messages. Advantageously, in certain examples, a user may be able to review a greater number of messages in a display due to old messages occupying less display space than more recent messages Thereby, the more recent messages remain readily intelligible while older messages are less dominant on the display screen, but are still visible.
Other examples depicted in the figures have been provided with reference numerals that correspond to similar features of earlier described examples. For example, feature number 100 can also correspond to numbers 200, 300 etc. These numbered features may appear in the figures but may not have been directly referred to within the description of these particular examples. These have still been provided in the figures to aid understanding of the further examples, particularly in relation to the features of similar earlier described examples.
In this example the apparatus 100 is an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) for a portable electronic device with a touch sensitive display. In other examples the apparatus 100 can be a module for such a device, or may be the device itself, wherein the processor 108 is a general purpose CPU of the device and the memory 107 is general purpose memory comprised by the device. The display, in other examples, may not be touch sensitive.
The input I allows for receipt of signalling to the apparatus 100 from further components, such as components of a portable electronic device (like a touch-sensitive or hover-sensitive display) or the like. The output O allows for onward provision of signalling from within the apparatus 100 to further components such as a display screen, speaker, or vibration module. In this example the input I and output O are part of a connection bus that allows for connection of the apparatus 100 to further components.
The processor 108 is a general purpose processor dedicated to executing/processing information received via the input I in accordance with instructions stored in the form of computer program code on the memory 107. The output signalling generated by such operations from the processor 108 is provided onwards to further components via the output O.
The memory 107 (not necessarily a single memory unit) is a computer readable medium (solid state memory in this example, but may be other types of memory such as a hard drive, ROM, RAM, Flash or the like) that stores computer program code. This computer program code stores instructions that are executable by the processor 108, when the program code is run on the processor 108. The internal connections between the memory 107 and the processor 108 can be understood to, in one or more examples, provide an active coupling between the processor 108 and the memory 107 to allow the processor 108 to access the computer program code stored on the memory 107.
In this example the input I, output O, processor 108 and memory 107 are all electrically connected to one another internally to allow for electrical communication between the respective components I, O, 107, 108. In this example the components are all located proximate to one another so as to be formed together as an ASIC, in other words, so as to be integrated together as a single chip/circuit that can be installed into an electronic device. In other examples one or more or all of the components may be located separately from one another.
The example of
The apparatus 100 in
The storage medium 307 is configured to store computer code configured to perform, control or enable the operation of the apparatus 100. The storage medium 307 may be configured to store settings for the other device components. The processor 308 may access the storage medium 307 to retrieve the component settings in order to manage the operation of the other device components. The storage medium 307 may be a temporary storage medium such as a volatile random access memory. The storage medium 307 may also be a permanent storage medium such as a hard disk drive, a flash memory, a remote server (such as cloud storage) or a non-volatile random access memory. The storage medium 307 could be composed of different combinations of the same or different memory types.
Examples discussed below show that, as a message ages, its contents are concealed by reducing the intelligibility of the aging message. Generally, messages are increasingly less intelligible as they age, either based on their actual age (based on the length of time that has elapsed since they were sent/received) or their logical age (based on the position of the message within the thread/conversation).
In
In
In
In
Thus the apparatus/device 400 is configured to change the readability/intelligibility of a particular message 404 upon user interaction 424 with the displayed particular message 404, the readability/intelligibility being changed with respect to the readability/intelligibility of the particular message 404 immediately preceding the user interaction 424. The change may be an increase or decrease.
In this example the readability/intelligibility of the messages 404, 406, 408, 410, 412 has been reduced by applying a shading effect overlaid on each message 404, 406, 408, 410 to obscure the displayed text for that message. Messages with reduced intelligibility may be considered to be obfuscated; that is, the messages have been made more obscure, and are less clear to see, read and/or understand. As illustrated in
In the following examples of
In other examples (not shown) older messages may be changed to a different language than the newer messages. The older messages may then be considered less intelligible given that they are not in, for example, languages of the country in which the device is operating, or at least by virtue of the fact that it is in a different language to the newer message(s). If the user wishes older messages to be less intelligible from his own perspective (for example to be less distracted by older messages when composing a new message), he may choose (in an options menu or similar) that older messages are provided in a language with which he is unfamiliar. If the user wishes older messages to be less intelligible from the perspective of passers-by but he wishes to still be able to read the older messages as readily as newer messages, he may choose older messages to be provided in a second language with which he is familiar but with which passers-by are unlikely to be familiar.
Thus more recent messages 506, 508 in this example have reduced readability/intelligibility compared with the most recent message 510 but higher readability/intelligibility than the oldest displayed message 502. By varying the spacing between characters in the messages, the readability/intelligibility decreases with the age of the messages in the conversation. In this example the character spacing is progressively decreased with increasing message age compared with a message which has no change in readability/intelligibility applied. In other examples, the character spacing within a message may be progressively increased and this may also decrease readability/intelligibility compared with a message in which no change in character spacing has been applied.
Combinations of these effects may be combined to change readability/intelligibility in different ways. For example, readability may be changed by varying font size and font style within a message. As another example, readability may be changed by covering characters in a message and reducing the character spacing. A user may be able to specify what effects are applied, and to what extent, for example in a user settings menu or similar. For example, a particular user may find messages completely unintelligible if the ordering of letters in the message is changed at all, whereas he may find that messages are still intelligible to him even if contrast between the message and the background is reduced. The user may therefore wish to choose optimum settings which he considers allows him to review his message conversations while minimising the chance of a passer-by reading his messages at a glance.
The user may be less likely to be as interested in seeing the exact content of older messages, or of messages which he has composed and sent, because he is probably already familiar with the content. Thus, for the user to review a message conversation, he may not need to see all the older messages displayed very clearly/with high readability. It may be enough for him to see, for example, a blurry, jumbled version of an older message to remember what the message said. However, another person who has not previously read a message may not be able to decipher the reduced readability message because of being displayed in the blurry, jumbled way. The user can advantageously review his message threads with a reduced risk of a third party being able to read over his shoulder or glance at his screen to see what has been said.
While the examples in
Changes in readability in a message thread may be applied between characters in a particular text-based message. This is shown, for example, in
In some examples the apparatus may be configured to provide for the change in the readability by reducing the readability of the particular message if the determined age of the message meets a predetermined old-age criterion. For example, it may be that messages which were sent/received today have no change in readability applied, but messages older than the current date do have a change in readability applied to reduce their readability. In this example the predetermined old age criterion is “older than the current day/date”. In other examples the old age criterion may relate to a different actual time period, such as “sent/received over one week ago” or relate to a logical age period, such as “sent/received before the latest three messages in the message thread”. The predetermined old-age criterion provides for reduced readability of older messages with respect to newer messages in the text-based message thread.
In some examples the apparatus may be configured to provide for the change in the readability by increasing the readability of the particular text-based message if the determined age of the message meets a predetermined new-age criterion. For example, it may be that messages which were sent/received in the current week are displayed in bold, or in a larger font size, to increase their readability, but messages older than those sent/received in the current week have no change in readability applied (or have reduced readability). In this example the predetermined new-age criterion is “within the current week”. In other examples the new-age criterion may relate to a different actual time period, such as “sent/received in the last 10 days” or relate to a logical age period, such as “the most recent two messages in the message thread”. The predetermined new-age criterion provides for increased readability of newer messages with respect to older messages in the text-based message thread.
In
In
The apparatus may be configured to determine an age criterion for messages in a thread based on the time/date distribution profile of messages in the displayed message thread, and provide for a change in readability of a message based on the determined age criterion. For example, if a displayed message thread includes messages sent/received all within the same day, the apparatus may change the readability of messages sent/received over one hour ago to reduce their readability, and/or may change the readability of messages sent/received within the last hour to increase their readability. As another example, if a displayed message thread includes messages sent/received over a three month period, the apparatus may change the readability of messages sent/received within the least week to increase their readability. In this way the most recent, and therefore most currently relevant, messages may be displayed in a more prominent way compared with older, less relevant messages with the apparatus determining what time period may logically be designated as “recent” and what time period may logically be designated as “old”. Thus the user can easily see the relevant information with reduced distraction from less relevant messages.
Changes in readability are illustrated in
In
In
In
In
In
For example, if a message is shown displayed in a larger font size to increase readability compared with the message before the change in readability is applied, then an associated timestamp and contact avatar associated with that message may also be displayed in a larger size. As another example, messages displayed with reduced readability due to an increase in message display density (compared with messages which are not shown with changed readability) may not be shown with an associated time/date stamp or contact avatar, because a purpose of increasing display density is to reduce the display area required to display these particular messages. Messages displayed without a change in display density may be shown with an associated time/date stamp and/or avatar. As another example, all messages displayed with any type of reduction in readability may be displayed alongside a blurred contact avatar and contact name so that the message sender is obscured.
A user may be more likely to be interested in the content of newer messages than the older messages, so it may not be necessary to display the older messages in enough detail that they can be easily read (or in some examples be read at all since the text size may be so small as to render the actual words illegible). However, the user can still see how the message exchange has flowed back and forth over time. The message flow can be shown over a greater period of time, as shown in
Reducing the readability of older messages by changing the size of the displayed messages density so that a greater number of older messages can be displayed while occupying less screen space may be advantageous if a portion of the display screen is already occupied by non-message content, such as an image, a virtual keyboard, or other virtual control buttons. By displaying older messages at a reduced size (and/or a higher message density), the user can still see the message thread spanning several messages while the newest messages are not reduced in size and are thus still comparatively easy to read. In some examples, the change in readability of messages by displaying older messages over a smaller space compared with more recent messages may be made when changing the displayed content such that a new item is displayed on the screen in a space previously used to display message content. For example, a display may show a series of messages each with the same level of readability. If the user, for example, causes a virtual keyboard to be displayed (for example by selecting a “reply” option to reply to a received message), then the virtual keyboard will occupy display space which was previously used for displaying message content. Rather than remove the older messages from display to make space for the virtual keyboard, the older messages may be displayed in a reduced space (with smaller font size and/or higher message density) while the more recent messages do not change in readability compared with the display before the virtual keyboard was displayed. In this way the user can still see all the messages available before the virtual keyboard was displayed to help him see the flow of conversation and compose his reply.
Because of the layout of the messages as in
While in
In changing the readability of a message, in some examples the message may be illegible after the change (for example, all or most of the message may be obscured by an opaque overlying shape, or the message may be blurred so much that the text appears as a grey smear with no identifiable character shapes). In other examples the message may still be legible but be more difficult to read. In a message thread, a user may be happy for messages older than a month, if still displayed in the message thread, to be illegible as they may not be of interest. As another example, in a social media message thread, a user may wish to prevent others from looking at his device display and seeing what messages he has received, but may wish for those messages to still be intelligible/legible.
Although examples above concentrate on decreasing readability of older messages, in some examples it may be that the most current message has an increased relative readability, by keeping the readability of one or more older messages the same, but providing the newer message(s) with a comparatively increased readability (e.g., by displaying the latest message in bold, or in a different colour). Then the user's eye may be drawn to the newest message without being distracted by older messages, although the older messages are displayed for reference if required. Of course, older messages may be obfuscated and newer messages may be displayed with enhanced readability/intelligibility in some examples.
In the above text-based examples, the whole of a particular message is shown with changed intelligibility. Of course, in other examples, a portion less than the whole of a particular message (i.e., a part of the message) may be changed such that the message has reduced intelligibility. For example, in a text-based message, only the numbers may be changed to reduce the intelligibility, because a number may be considered to portray more sensitive information than general word-based text (a number may be, for example, a password, a PIN number, a contact telephone number, or a house number in an address). As another example, in a text-based message, only words beginning with a capital letter may be changed to reduce the intelligibility, because such words may be associated with names of people and places, and therefore be considered to portray more sensitive information than other text. Thus, for example, the intelligibility of a number or a capitalised word may, as a part of a particular message, be changed in a message according to the determined age of the message (thereby reducing the intelligibility of the message as a whole).
Thus, for example, in a mixed media message (such as a message containing text, still images and/or movies), the intelligibility of one or some, but not all, of the message components may change. The change may be considered to be with respect to at least one of the other of the messages in the displayed message thread. In some examples comprising image or movie content, the intelligibility of some of the image/movie may be reduced, but not all of the image/movie. For example, regions of an image in a message determined to show a human face may be obfuscated to reduce the message intelligibility but other non-facial elements in the image may not change. Thus the intelligibility of a portion (e.g., a facial portion) of an image may, as a part of a particular message, be changed in a message according to the determined age of the message (thereby reducing the intelligibility of the message as a whole). In other cases, there may just be an image exchange without text content. For example, older image messages may be obfuscated with respect to newer image messages.
The apparatus may be configured to subsequently change the readability of the particular message upon initiation user interaction with the displayed particular message, the readability subsequently changed with respect to the readability of the particular message immediately preceding the initiation user interaction. A user may interact with a particular message to initiate an increase and/or decrease in its readability. For example, on a touch-sensitive display, a user may touch a particular message and slide to the left over it to initiate an increase in the message's readability, and may touch a particular message and slide to the right over it to initiate a decrease in the message's readability. Thus, for example, after the apparatus has changed the readability of one or more particular messages in a message thread, the user may be able to interact with a particular one of the messages for which the readability has changed in order to manually adjust the level of readability of that particular message. For example, if a relatively recent message has its level of readability changed to be less intelligible but the message is still intelligible and the message contains particularly private content, the user may be able to interact with that message (for example, by tapping it) and “tweak” the level of readability to decrease it further.
In some examples a user may be able to interact with a displayed message, for example by touching the message on a touch sensitive screen or by clicking on the message with a pointer. In using a device with eye-control, which tracks the location of a user's eyes to determine what the user is looking at, the user may be able to look at a message to cause a user interaction with that message. In some examples the user interaction may cause the readability of the message to change so that the user can read a particular message more easily or obscure a particular message to make it less intelligible. The user may wish to, for example, obscure a particularly private message in a message conversation so that others cannot read it if they look at his device display. An increase/decrease in readability caused by the user interaction as described above may remain until a further user input is received in some examples, or may be a temporary increase in readability for a predetermined period of time in other examples.
Any mentioned apparatus/device/server and/or other features of particular mentioned apparatus/device/server may be provided by apparatus arranged such that they become configured to carry out the desired operations only when enabled, e.g. switched on, or the like. In such cases, they may not necessarily have the appropriate software loaded into the active memory in the non-enabled (e.g. switched off state) and only load the appropriate software in the enabled (e.g. on state). The apparatus may comprise hardware circuitry and/or firmware. The apparatus may comprise software loaded onto memory. Such software/computer programs may be recorded on the same memory/processor/functional units and/or on one or more memories/processors/functional units.
In some examples, a particular mentioned apparatus/device/server may be pre-programmed with the appropriate software to carry out desired operations, and wherein the appropriate software can be enabled for use by a user downloading a “key”, for example, to unlock/enable the software and its associated functionality. Advantages associated with such examples can include a reduced requirement to download data when further functionality is required for a device, and this can be useful in examples where a device is perceived to have sufficient capacity to store such pre-programmed software for functionality that may not be enabled by a user.
Any mentioned apparatus/circuitry/elements/processor may have other functions in addition to the mentioned functions, and that these functions may be performed by the same apparatus/circuitry/elements/processor. One or more disclosed aspects may encompass the electronic distribution of associated computer programs and computer programs (which may be source/transport encoded) recorded on an appropriate carrier (e.g. memory, signal).
Any “computer” described herein can comprise a collection of one or more individual processors/processing elements that may or may not be located on the same circuit board, or the same region/position of a circuit board or even the same device. In some examples one or more of any mentioned processors may be distributed over a plurality of devices. The same or different processor/processing elements may perform one or more functions described herein.
The term “signalling” may refer to one or more signals transmitted as a series of transmitted and/or received electrical/optical signals. The series of signals may comprise one, two, three, four or even more individual signal components or distinct signals to make up said signalling. Some or all of these individual signals may be transmitted/received by wireless or wired communication simultaneously, in sequence, and/or such that they temporally overlap one another.
With reference to any discussion of any mentioned computer and/or processor and memory (e.g. including ROM, CD-ROM etc), these may comprise a computer processor, Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), field-programmable gate array (FPGA), and/or other hardware components that have been programmed in such a way to carry out the inventive function.
The applicant hereby discloses in isolation each individual feature described herein and any combination of two or more such features, to the extent that such features or combinations are capable of being carried out based on the present specification as a whole, in the light of the common general knowledge of a person skilled in the art, irrespective of whether such features or combinations of features solve any problems disclosed herein, and without limitation to the scope of the claims. The applicant indicates that the disclosed aspects/examples may consist of any such individual feature or combination of features. In view of the foregoing description it will be evident to a person skilled in the art that various modifications may be made within the scope of the disclosure.
While there have been shown and described and pointed out fundamental novel features as applied to examples thereof, it will be understood that various omissions and substitutions and changes in the form and details of the devices and methods described may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the disclosure. For example, it is expressly intended that all combinations of those elements and/or method steps which perform substantially the same function in substantially the same way to achieve the same results are within the scope of the disclosure. Moreover, it should be recognized that structures and/or elements and/or method steps shown and/or described in connection with any disclosed form or examples may be incorporated in any other disclosed or described or suggested form or example as a general matter of design choice. Furthermore, in the claims means-plus-function clauses are intended to cover the structures described herein as performing the recited function and not only structural equivalents, but also equivalent structures. Thus although a nail and a screw may not be structural equivalents in that a nail employs a cylindrical surface to secure wooden parts together, whereas a screw employs a helical surface, in the environment of fastening wooden parts, a nail and a screw may be equivalent structures.
Zhang, Liang, Paniaras, Yannis
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